Cash McCall

When Natalie Wood was in her prime, she was at the top of the biz, stunningly beautiful, sharp, but accessible. And no one played the all-american stud better than Jim Garner.

Call it a bedroom farce if you like but Cash McCall combines a lot of wheeling and dealing with a good old fashioned boy-meets-girl to make a very pleasing movie.

At first glance, McCall (Garner) is part playboy, part ruthless businessman, but we know better; that his heart of gold belongs only to Lory Austen (Wood), a woman he met last Summer, and he's thought of nothing but her since.

Standard fare, well done with attractive stars, that alone puts it in the upper 20% as far as I'm concerned. Enjoy it.

In many respects this looks like a 1980s film that has been moved through a hole in the time/space continuum into 1959. From a cynical 1990s perspective, much of it is probably a touch too sweet, especially the romance, but the way high-flying business is portrayed was way ahead of its time. It is very much as we would find it in mid-1980s films such as Wall Street or Other People's Money. In case some of the dialogue/monologue sounds familiar: Pretty Woman seems to have "borrowed" significant chunks.

Cameron Hawley's novel about the politics inherent in corporate boardrooms became the essential business drama Executive Suite (1954). With that film's Oscar nominated cinematographer (George J. Folsey) and supporting actress (Nina Foch) as well as Dean Jagger and character actor Edgar Stehli, this one was made into a comedy featuring James Garner (in the title role) and Natalie Wood. It was adapted by Lenore J. Coffee and Marion Hargrove, and directed by Joseph Pevney.

The story has enough misdirection (and at least one dead end) in it to keep it interesting, even if (at times) it gets somewhat confusing, but Garner's charm and Wood's natural beauty makes it eminently watchable.

The cast also includes E.G. Marshall, Henry Jones, Otto Kruger, Roland Winters and Edward Platt as key players in the various dealings by McCall, an elusive character whose reputation is not unlike Wall Street (1987)'s Gordon Gekko.

McCall wants to buy Grant Austen's (Jagger) plastics company, in part because Austen's daughter is Lory (Wood), a woman with whom he has an unrequited past. Jones (whose boss is Platt) plays McCall's associate, Marshall his lawyer and Kruger his banker. Winters and Foch (her boss is Stehli) are the foe and foil that add conflict to the initially smooth transaction and romance.

James Garner makes a dashing young entrepreneur of the business world in Cash McCall, the second of two films made from Cameron Hawley's business world novels, the other being the acclaimed Executive Suite. Hawley certainly knew how to capture the business world well and put a proper face on it.

Usually it's not a real good idea to mix business with pleasure, but in Cash McCall, Garner succeeds quite well. I now know where some of the plot of Grease came from. If you'll remember John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John have a summer fling which ends, but then find themselves in the same school in different social circles.

Cash McCall begins with Garner already having had that fling with Natalie Wood on vacation in Maine and he discovers she's the daughter of Dean Jagger, president of a plastics firm he's looking to acquire. When he discovers who she is it does complicate matters, but Garner is a most resourceful man. In the end it all works out to everyone's satisfaction, but there are a few bumps in the road. Those bumps are what the film is all about.

James Garner has played so many con men on the big and small screen it would have been an easy matter for him to slip into that familiar characterization for him. But he plays this one absolutely straight and does quite well with the part. Of course if he had been anything less than up front he wouldn't have gotten Wood. Natalie was just radiant in her role as the Philadelphia Main Line princess, a bit more human than Tracy Samantha Lord of The Philadelphia Story.

Besides Dean Jagger, the leads are backed by an established group of players portraying various business types as Edward Platt, E.G. Marshall, Otto Kruger, Parley Baer, and Roland Winters. Two performances that are really outstanding are Nina Foch as the hotel chief housekeeper at the place where Garner resides occupying an entire floor and part of another and Henry Jones as an efficiency expert who Garner recruits.

I'm surprised that Cash McCall was not taken up as material for a prime time soap opera in the Eighties, the decade of such. It certainly has all the ingredients.

Still it remains as one of James Garner's best early film performances and usually on the top 10 list for his fans.

When you first hear of this flick, you think it is like most of Garner's "Light Comedy" from the 60's - Not so. This film shows the a steamy underside of the Big Business "Scene" and the kind of trickery that goes on... And how even an honest down to earth deal could be made to look like a swindle, with a little jealousy and backstabbing added when least expected- And for that you have to give proper credit to Nina Koch for playing a kind of reverse "Erica Martin" from Executive Suite.

Garner is surrounded with some of the great character actors of the time: Dean Jagger, E. G. Marshall (From "12 Angry Men"), Otto Kruger (From Hitchcock's "Saboteur" and "Magnificent Obsession"), Edward Platt ("Chief" from "Get Smart").

And of course Natalie Wood, and in this film she gives one of her best... She is an absolute firecracker. I like the fact that the interaction between Garner and Wood is a little subdued.

One thing that is amazing, is that this was directed by Joe Pevney, who directed some of the best episodes of Star Trek Original Series.